IRS Leak of Billionaires' Tax Data Has Gone Unpunished for One Year

In June 2021, ProPublica published confidential IRS tax information about wealthy Americans provided by a still-unidentified source.

"Today, ProPublica is launching the first in a series of stories based on the private tax data of some of our nation's richest citizens," ProPublica's Stephen Engelberg and Richard Tofel wrote.

Drawn from IRS records, the information was provided through "Secure systems that allow whistleblowers to transmit information to us without revealing their identity." The data revealed that many wealthy Americans successfully minimize their tax burdens, which might have been the source's purpose, though that's anybody's guess.

"[T]he IRS completed 1,694 investigations into the willful unauthorized access of tax data by employees-and 27% were found to be violations," the U.S. Government Accountability Office reported.

We have no choice but to fill out our tax forms even though we know that the federal employees receiving our information have a track record of abusing that data for their own ends and to our detriment.

"The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration previously issued an audit report in September 2006 on the IRS's Office of Privacy and found that the IRS was not complying with legislative privacy requirements," TIGTA reported.

"There have been no arrests nor any official hints about how the wall of secrecy around tax records was broken; it is unknown whether the IRS has found or closed any security gaps," reports.

https://reason.com/2022/06/03/irs-leak-of-billionaires-tax-data/